Heat on PM as Powell admits Iraq flaw

Colin Powell: "If the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position."
Picture: Reuters

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has undercut Prime Minister John Howard's claim that mobile laboratories found in Iraq were proof of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programs.

Initial intelligence that the laboratories produced biological weapons was flawed, Mr Powell has said.

In the Bush Administration's biggest backdown over Iraq so far, Mr Powell admitted his "most dramatic" allegation about the mobile germ labs was based on questionable intelligence.

Mr Howard said in June that overseas intelligence agencies had examined one of the laboratories found during the war and concluded it was a "biological weapons production facility". It was his most forthright claim about Iraq's weapons program and he refused to back down from it.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said he had only seen press reports of Mr Powell's remarks and had no further comment at this point.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said the admissions were further proof the public was misled. He called on Mr Howard to make a public apology.

"This one is a big one, and could I just say it would be very useful if the Prime Minister simply squared to the nation's television cameras and said that as far as his Government's case for going to war with Iraq is concerned, he misled the Australian people," Mr Rudd said.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer accused Mr Rudd of calling Colin Powell a liar, and said the outburst would harm Labor's relations with the US Administration.

"Australia's position was based on Saddam Hussein being in clear breach of Security Council resolution 1441 and previous Security Council resolutions," Mr Downer said. "A country provided that information on the mobile biological weapons laboratories, and the Americans used that, Secretary Powell used that. He used it in good faith.

"I just don't think Mr Rudd does the Labor Party any favours by suggesting the Secretary of State of the United States is a liar."

Mr Powell's comments followed a report in The Los Angeles Times detailing the use of discredited information from an Iraqi defector, code-named Curveball - the brother of one of the top aides of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was an important advocate for the invasion of Iraq.

The allegations were central to the evidence Mr Powell dramatically presented to the Security Council in February last year, as he urged a sceptical world body to confront Saddam.

"It was presented to me in the preparation of that (portfolio of evidence) as the best information and intelligence that we had. They certainly indicated to me... that it was solid," Mr Powell said.

"Now it appears not to be the case that it was solid. If the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position."

Mr Powell said he hoped the White House-appointed commission "will look into these matters". And he noted pointedly that "I've had discussions with the CIA about it".

Mr Powell and other officials used the evidence on the labs to show that Saddam was trying to develop a deadly arsenal of germ weapons and to fit it into a fleet of trucks and rail cars to elude weapons inspectors.

Former chief weapons inspector David Kay, has said that most of the evidence came from Curveball. Mr Kay said that the Curveball case was the most troubling of the intelligence lapses because it suggested "a lack of due diligence and care" by US officials.

In Australia, the Government and Opposition also continued brawling over the lack of an Australian military presence in Afghanistan.

Mr Rudd released letters from Afghanistan's ambassador, calling for ongoing military assistance to combat terrorism after the Taliban's overthrow.